by Mario Alfonsi | Published on Mar 11, 2012 | Updated on Mar 11, 2012After a long period when amateur players seemed to be winning tournaments left and right, the last few years have seen poker pros dominate major events around the world. But that doesn’t mean that amateurs can’t win – a fact proven once again this weekend by Moon Kim, who won the World Poker Tour’s Bay 101 Shooting Star Main Event.Kim is an amateur poker player from San Jose, California. Before this week’s tournament, he had a modest poker resume: his two WSOP cashes and a win in a Bay 101 Open event back in 2007 were certainly outstanding results, but couldn’t compare to the lofty accomplishments many of his opponents boasted.Still, Kim had plenty to be confident about upon reaching the tournament’s final table. He was third in chips of the six remaining players, and the three shorter stacks were well behind the three leaders. Not surprisingly, several of his opponents had already had success in major tournaments; chip leader Erik Cajelais held a World Series of Poker bracelet and well over $2 million in lifetime cashes, while short stacks Andrew Badecker, Joe Elpayaa and Joe Serock all had accomplished tournament histories as well.Despite the presence of a few short stacks, it took over 100 hands before Elpayaa became the first player eliminated. The player who took him out – Badecker – would soon follow him to the rail in fifth place.The biggest surprise came when Cajelais was eliminated in fourth place. Unable to gain any traction during the final table, Cajelais saw his dreams of winning his first ever WPT tournament slowly fade away. Not long after, Joe Serock lost a coin flip against Kim, giving Kim a significant boost heading into heads up play.That left only two local amateurs in the hunt for their first WPT title, as Kim battled against Ubaid Habib. On the final hand, Habib called for all his chips with top pair against Kim’s flush draw. Just as it seemed Habib would take a decisive chip lead, Kim hit his flush on the river, ending the tournament instantly.For his win, Kim received $960,900. Habib took home $570,200 for second place. In both cases, this easily represented the largest cashes of their respective careers.
